Earlier this week, OneClickSportsNews and DuckSportsNews speculated as to who might be hosting the new sports talk radio that Cumulus Broadcasting has been promoting on 1320 “The Score” over the course of the last week.

According to this press release to be sent out on Monday, The Register-Guard’s sports columnist George Schroeder will be the host of “The Writer’s Block” to be broadcast in the Eugene/Springfield area on KSCR 1320 and KUGN 590 beginning Monday, October 22nd.

October 15, 2007

For immediate release…

KSCR/KUGN to present NEW Local Sports-Talk Show

(Eugene, Oregon)…Cumulus Broadcasting, owners and operators of KUGN, 590 and KSCR, 1320, announced today the addition of a new Live and Local sports-talk show to start on the two stations on Monday, October 22.

The Writers Block, hosted by respected Register Guard sports columnist George Schroeder will be broadcast LIVE on 1320 “The Score” (KSCR) at 2PM every Monday through Friday afternoon while being streamed live on Register Guard.com and replayed at 6PM each evening on “Newstalk 590, KUGN-AM. The one hour daily program will focus on local and national sports stories and offer opinion and viewpoint from Schroeder as well as guests and callers. KSCR’s “Sports Idol” Justin Meyers will serve as side-kick and commentator.

Schroeder, serving as the Register Guard’s featured sports columnist for the past 3 months, has experience hosting a radio show from his previous assignment as writer/broadcaster in Oklahoma City.

KSCR/KUGN program director, Jerry Allen, commented: “George has a terrific on-air personality and backs it up with solid sports knowledge and interesting opinions. We’re delighted to have him host this new show”.

“I have enjoyed my previous broadcast involvement and look forward to helping develop this new daily radio show”, commented Schroeder. “I appreciate the support from the Register Guard on this project, and look forward to involving other sports writers into the show”.

For more information, contact Jerry Allen.

George, good luck with “The Writer’s Block”. Here’s hoping you don’t get over it anytime soon.

And the Eugene/Springfield area might be hearing something like that in the next week or two.

Since late last week, ESPN Radio 1320 “The Score” has been running promos promising to bring a brand new voice to the Willamette Valley’s barren sports talk radio landscape. The spots specifically mention the fact that it is someone new to the KUGN/KSCR family. So, that probably rules out Justin “The Sports Idol” Myers, Jerry Allen, Jay Allen, Mike Jorgensen and Joe Giansante.

(Disclaimer: Contrary to any online rumors you might have read, we here at DuckSportsNews.com are not going to be hosting this new show. We’re flattered. But that is not in our plans as of right now.)

Last night on ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”, Ty Pennington and his team suited up and joined the back-to-back National Champion Oregon State University baseball team for some “remodeling” on a house in Corvallis, Oregon.

UPDATE: Beginning Monday, October 15, you will be able to find the best GameDay signs on BestGameDaySigns.com.

After experiencing ESPN’s College GameDay live for the first time before the Oregon-Cal game, I’m now hooked on trying to decipher the best and most creative signs to appear on the broadcast.

This week Chris, Lee, and Kirk were in Baton Rouge, La. for the LSU-Florida game. Overall, the signs were no where near as clever, funny, or creative as the signs at the Oregon-Cal game. But there were some pretty good ones. And even though I was born in Louisiana, I don’t think I caught all of the cultural references and nuances. But I think I got most of them.

The Washinton State flag. It’s hard to make out, but that’s it. Duck fans, please Coug that flag this weekend. It’s got to stop. And now as good a time as any.

Were there other good signs? There were some that were OK. But not a lot. Lot’s of “Tebow This” and “Geaux” or “Bleaux” that. Overall, the numbers and quality did not match GameDay at Autzen Stadium. Sorry, Tigers.

Make sure and visit DuckSportsNews.com throughout the week for all your Duck sports news. Bookmark it and keep on checking back to see if Duck fans have made any progress on getting that WSU flag.

Update – October 10, 2007: Spc. Jourdan B. Smith and his wife, Erin, will be guests of the Aliotti family for the Oregon-USC game. The Register-Guard’s George Schroeder writes about the outpouring of support and ticket offers from Duck fans in today’s paper. “A Flag For Unnecessary Kindness”.

First of all, we would like to thank you for visiting DuckSportsNews.com or OneClickSportsBlog. Your visits have made our sites two of the most visited sites on the internet for news about University of Oregon athletics.

Second, when we started this enterprise, our goal was to help Duck fans find the best news about U of O sports in one place, with “One Click”. We could have automated everything, as some sites do. We could have had our computers do all the work. But we did not want to do that. We wanted all of our links to be hand-picked, because there are some stories, some perspectives that we knew would be missed. Are they stories specifically about Oregon sports? No. But they are stories any Duck fan would want to read.

And The Register-Guard’s George Schroeder presents us with another one of those stories today.

After reading Mr. Schroeder’s column, all I kept thinking was, “How could I show my appreciation to Spc. Jourdan B. Smith for his service?”. A “Thank You” to him, or anyone serving in the military, is a start.

But I think Duck fans can do better than that.

And I know DuckSportsNews.com visitors can do better than that.

We need to get Spc. Jourdan B. Smith his wife, Erin, tickets to the USC game. And I’m not talking just any tickets to the game. Duck fans pride themselves on having the best. The best facilities. The best stadium. The best fans. So, let’s start at the top.

Considering Spc. Jourdan B. Smith’s injuries in the service of our country, let’s get him and his wife tickets with Club Level access on the south side of Autzen Stadium. If you have never been up to the Club Level, the easiest way up there is either on the escalator or the elevator, which I’m sure Spc. Smith would appreciate. Would he accept other tickets to the USC game? No doubt. But let’s start big.

Am I challenging visitors to DuckSportsNews.com? You bet. But we’re also challenging ourselves because we’re not going to ask anything of our visitors we would not ask of ourselves. It would just be nice to have a Plan B if our efforts fail.

If you have two tickets available to the USC game, please contact us through OneClickSportsNews.com and we will make sure and forward it to the appropriate source. If you don’t, but know someone who might, copy and paste this link to them in an email.

Even though the USC game is still a few weeks away, I know we can secure Jourdan and Erin Smith a couple of tickets within the week.

The best matchup of the college football season featuring the #6 & #11 ranked teams comes down to the last play of the game and only 20% of the country is able to watch it? Yeah, I can understand why ESPN might have received some unfavorable comments regarding the anemic regionalized national coverage of the Oregon-Cal game.

The guys at Deadspin.com have posted another fun-filled ESPN internal memo, “Weekly Viewer Report.” We’ll save you trouble from scrolling all the way through the report looking for Oregon-related news. Here are the quick hits about Oregon, parsed for you pleasure:

Viewers outside of the regionalized areas upset Oregon vs. Cal and Clemson vs. Ga Tech games were not televised nationwide

Viewers in the East and Midwest upset Oregon vs. Cal not shown nationally [game was offered in 20% of the country and on ESPN GamePlan] – 129

Viewers’ Voice:
“I live in Colorado; Texas and Kansas State equals BORING. Rest assured your ratings will be weak where CAL/ORG isn’t on (besides home team markets) It should be on nationally.”

The game was on ABC, right? Yes, but ESPN is handling the coverage. So, what happened to ABC? Oh, I don’t know. Absolutely Bad Coverage?